Chapter XVI.  Hexham—­The North Tyne—­Border-Land and its Suggestions—­Hawick—­Teviotdale—­Birth-place of Leyden—­Melrose and Dryburgh Abbeys—­Abbotsford:  Sir Walter Scott; Homage to his Genius—­The Ferry and the Oar-Girl—­New Farm Steddings—­Scenery of the Tweed Valley—­Edinburgh and its Characteristics.

Chapter XVII.  Loch Leven—­Its Island Castle—­Straths—­Perth—­ Salmon-breeding—­Thoughts on Fish-farming—­Dunkeld—­Blair Atholl—­ Ducal Tree-planter—­Strathspey and its Scenery—­The Roads—­Scotch Cattle and Sheep—­Night in a Wayside Cottage—­Arrival at Inverness.

Chapter XVIII.  Inverness—­Ross-shire—­Tain—­Dornoch—­Golspie—­ Progress of Railroads—­The Sutherland Eviction—­Sea-coast Scenery—­ Caithness—­Wick—­Herring Fisheries—­John O’Groat’s:  Walk’s End.

Chapter XIX.  Anthony Cruickshank—­The Greatest Herd of Shorthorns in the World—­Return to London and Termination of my Tour.

PREFACE.

In presenting this volume to the public, I feel that a few words of explanation are due to the readers that it may obtain, in addition to those offered to them in the first chapter.  When I first visited England, in 1846, it was my intention to make a pedestrian tour from one end of the island to the other, in order to become more acquainted with the country and people than I could by any other mode of travelling.  A few weeks after my arrival, I set out on such a walk, and had made about one hundred miles on foot, when I was constrained to suspend the tour, in order to take part in movements which soon absorbed all my time and strength.  For the ensuing ten years I was nearly the whole time in Great Britain, travelling from one end of the kingdom to the other, to promote the movements referred to; still desiring to accomplish the walk originally proposed.  On returning to England at the beginning of 1863, after a continuous residence of seven years in America, I found myself, for the first time, in the condition to carry out my intention of 1846.  Several new motives had been added in the interval to those that had at first operated upon my mind.  I had dabbled a little in farming in my native village, New Britain, Connecticut, and had labored to excite additional interest in agriculture among my neighbors.  We had formed an Agricultural Club, and met weekly for several winters to compare notes, exchange opinions’ and discuss matters connected with the occupation.  They had honored me with the post of Corresponding Secretary from the beginning.  We held a meeting the evening before I left for England, when they not only refused to accept my resignation as Secretary, but made me promise to write them letters about farming in the Mother Country, and on other matters of interest that I might meet with on my travels there.  My first idea was to do this literally;—­to make a walk through the best agricultural sections of England,